04/11/2024
If you know who John Michael Talbot (JMT) is, no need for me to introduce him. If you do not know who he is, the host of this program will do an excellent job of introducing him.
When I was first learning to play guitar and sing, I had aspirations of doing something in secular music. Until I heard the aforementioned, JMT. I had just begun studying at LSU and a priest-friend of mine gave me an album to listen to: "The Lord's Supper" by someone I had never heard of before... JMT. To say I was blown away would be an understatement.
I later found out that JMT had written these arrangements before he became a Catholic. Up to that point he had no intention he'd ever become a Catholic. And here he wrote his own arrangements for the Catholic Mass.
Until this point, I don't think I ever heard any Christian music that I could describe as being "anointed" by the Holy Spirit. As I dove more deeply into his music there was a corresponding depth to my spiritual life. By the end of my first semester of listening to his music, I no longer had a desire to be in secular music; I only wanted to write, sing, perform Christian music.
I've met him several times after concerts in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2008, along with Matt DiFilippo and Levi Guffey, I attended his final "Catholic Association of Music" conference in Eureka Springs, AR. In 2009 and 2010, along with Matt, volunteered a few days' work on the vast property known as "The Hermitage", up in the Ozarks.
In the interview he references this album and some other works of his. If you are interested, the albums I have found the most deeply meaningful are, "The Lord's Supper", "Come to the Quiet", "The God of Life", "Hiding Place", and "Light Eternal". Individual songs that have touched my life and/or brought healing to some part of my life, are: "The Magnificat", "Hiding Place", "Healer of My Soul", "Prayer Before the Cross", and "I Am the Bread of Life".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrc1ExXKDSE